Hauling off wrong car preceded DeLoach's being hauled to jail

Updated 1:24 am, Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Realizing your car has been towed is never a pleasant experience, especially when the company that towed it charges nearly $300 to get it back.

But I suspect John La Maestra felt a twinge of glee nonetheless, and perhaps outright elation, when he realized Friday night that Bexar Towing had yanked his Jeep Wrangler from a Southtown parking lot.

The reason: La Maestra is a San Antonio police officer.

Also, mere hours before his car was towed, Police Chief William McManus issued a memo to officers ratcheting up the intensity of an ongoing battle between the city and Bexar Towing, which has insisted for months on charging $293 for private tows of illegally parked vehicles.

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The company had insisted on charging this exorbitant fee despite a city ordinance that caps it at $85.

And insisted on the fee despite receiving hundreds of citations from the Police Department — about 450 in May alone — for violating the ordinance, a Class C misdemeanor and the equivalent of a city ticket.

On Friday, a district judge, however, denied a request by Bexar Towing to block the Police Department from making arrests in connection with violations of the ordinance.

McManus was waiting to pounce.

“I put a memo out while the judge was hearing the case that we were not to arrest until after the ruling was made, if the judge allowed us to handle the case in that manner,” McManus said. “Once the judge ruled against the towing folks, I rescinded that memo (to say) we're authorized to arrest in accordance with those procedures.”

And arrest they did.

John DeLoach, an employee of Bexar Towing, spent a night in jail after he refused to reduce La Maestra's $293 charge.

It was the first arrest made in connection with Bexar Towing violating the ordinance. Since the arrest, the company said it is now charging only $85.

I don't know whether DeLoach, 65, knew that La Maestra was a cop when he squeezed him for more cash than city law allows.

This unhappy fact must have dawned on DeLoach, however, when police cruisers arrived at the company's tow yard “immediately” after he refused to shave the fee, according to Mark Cannan, attorney for Bexar Towing.

“I hate to call it a set-up, but clearly. ... Let me back up,” Cannan said.

“It's obvious that (La Maestra) did not make a call to the police,” he said. “The police were waiting there absent any call for their presence. (La Maestra) had arrangements with those police officers.

“It illustrates that their policy was to find an incident to arrest somebody, not to respond to a citizen's complaint,” he said.

La Maestra, who was off-duty when his vehicle was towed, “politely declined” an interview with me, according to police Sgt. Javier Salazar.

That's too bad because conspiracy theories can be fun.

Here's what I'd like to ask the patrol officer:

When you illegally parked your Jeep Wrangler in the parking lot of a Southtown business, had you already received the memo from McManus authorizing arrests?

Did you feel a degree of satisfaction when police suddenly appeared to arrest DeLoach the very moment he had his fingers in your wallet?

I know I would've. Then again, I don't have that kind of pull.

In Cannan's estimation, the incident constitutes an abuse of power.

McManus called it a “coincidence” that the first arrest was triggered by the towing of a cop's car. And he considers the actions of Bexar Towing an abuse of citizens' rights.

“The fact that it's a police officer — a police officer is entitled to the same right as anyone else,” McManus said. “These guys are being scofflaws about this whole thing. They've been told the ordinance stands.”